Sunday, April 10, 2011

If abortion is 'murder,' why do abortion foes not advocate prosecuting and imprisoning accessories?

If abortion is murder, then why aren’t those who oppose it pushing to put people who perform abortions — the doctors and nurses — and those who instigate them — the mothers — and who facilitate them — the fathers — in prison?

That’s what we do with actual murderers. If I shoot Mr. Pink, then I go to jail, and my pal who loaned me the gun goes to jail, and my cousin who drove the car goes to jail...

The hunch that I’ve had...is that “abortion is murder” is not a sincere conviction, but mere rhetoric.

Well, it's either that or a concession to present political reality. Foes of abortion rights aren't calling for the arrest, prosecution and imprisonment of women, their friends who drive them to the clinic and the entire clinic staff on charges of premeditated murder (what else could it be) yet.

I addressed this question in 2002 during a Rhubarb Patch debate with Nora O'Callaghan, then the director of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago's Respect Life Office. Here are the excerpts dealing with prosecution:

ZORN: The laws protecting infants make it a felony--first-degree murder, punishable by death or life without parole--for someone of sound mind to participate in the killing of that infant, regardless of the circumstances of its conception.

It’s not an absurd or insincere question to ask of pro-lifers, then, if they would support a severe prison sentence for, say, a 21-year-old woman who had an abortion after discovering herself one month pregnant with the child of a man who had raped her.

The vast majority of people would say no; probably even the vast majority of people in your movement would say no. They would have an almost instinctive sense that such an act would not be equivalent to taking a baby to an executioner one month after birth. Not even close.

I do not raise this just to play gotcha, but to point out that both sides in this debate really are on the continuum and do see some ambiguities.

O'CALLAGHAN: When the states had laws against abortion, women who had them were treated as “secondary victims” of the offense. It was the doctors who were prosecuted, with evidence provided by the women. When a society is far out of whack, corrective laws must take into account the “background” social conditions that led to the injustice. I would think it will take a long time to rid ourselves of the cultural degradation caused by Roe, and I don’t think that locking up women who have abortions would be helpful in healing our culture, nor that it would be supported by a majority of people. Coercion is normally the last (and often least effective) means for creating a just society. No one even thinks of buying or selling a human being today -- not because they fear jail, but because our culture has internalized the morality of the 13th amendment.

ZORN: Your own logic locks you into prosecuting women who seek abortions for murder. You write of such women as “secondary victims” and hem and haw about transition periods and the ineffectiveness of coercion because you know how utterly unpalatable such prosecutions would be for the vast majority of Americans who do, in the end, see, feel and sense a real distinction between an embryo and, say, a one day old baby.

O'CALLAGHAN: You can say you don’t accept my answer on jailing women for abortion if you wish, it doesn’t change my views. As an empirical matter, women were not prosecuted under U.S. abortion laws when they were in effect, and compared to the situation today, abortion was very rare.

ZORN: I've been pushing you on the question of whether a woman who seeks and obtains a first trimester abortion, for example, should be charged with first-degree murder in order to probe how profound your belief is that such an abortion is morally equivalent to murder and to invite readers of this debate to consider the implications of that absolute position. I know you don't want to answer--you fall back on historical empiricism rather than tell me what you would do if you were in charge--because the inescapable answer, like the answer that you did provide to my "hard case" hypothetical of the 13 year old made pregnant by her dad, reveals the morally absolute stance as unpopular at best, unworkably extreme at worst.

Not to say that the absolute pro-choice position is any less extreme or more workable; just to point out, again, that most people on both sides of this debate do not enjoy the refuge of perfect moral clarity or consistency.

I'm guessing that, five years later, abortion-rights foes have no better answers than they did then. But have it!

UPDATE: On Neil Steinberg's Facebook page he's posted this video in which anti-abortion protesters have a very hard time answering this question. Many, it seems, haven't even thought about it.

Posted at 09:50:30 AM

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I am old enough to remember when being in favor of abortion and birth control was a ultra conservative Republican initiative.

The ZPG (Zero Population Growth) movement told us we'd be standing on each other's heads by 2020 if we did not enforce or at least encourage birth control including legalizing abortion. At the time, from their POV, the minority birthrate was skyrocketing so this was a major right-wing policy push.

The overwhelming majority of the anti-abortion crowd doesn't want anyone charged with murder because that charge would result in the law being turned upside down upon it self.
There are a few that want charges, I think Scheidler is one of them.

Exactly who would the government charge with murder?
Sounds simple, well, you're wrong!
Let's say they charge the doctor with murder.
OK, but what about the woman?
She went to the doctor & requested the "murder".
So she should be charged as a co-conspirator & with solicitation to commit murder.
The same goes for anyone that drove her to the abortion clinic.

But the antis insist that the women will never be charged with anything, because the women would also be "victims" of the "murderer" [the doctor].
Thoroughly illogical says Mr. Bumble!

If that happened, you have selective prosecution & that's illegal.
You could never charge only the doctor & let the woman off, because it would become a series of show trials or even worse, kangaroo courts convicting doctors solely on the words of a woman offered immunity if she rats the doctor out!

EZ, you once linked to a video of some pro-choice people challenging picketers in Arlington Heights on that very question.
They totally evaded the question & refused to answer.

Let’s define terms. “Homicide” is the taking of a human life. “Murder” is the unjustified taking of a human life.

I will concede that self-defense, a just war, and the life of the mother are legitimate justifications for homicide.

I will grudgingly concede that rape and underage incest MIGHT be justifications. I am very troubled by and unsure of that concession. MCN might convince me one way. Others might convince me the other way.

But now let’s be rigorous.

I concede that the right of any person to control their body is a very important right. However, I just do not understand how that right justifies the taking of a human life.

Finally, abortion is homicide, it is the taking of a human life. For me, this is not based on any religious dogma. Rather it is obvious from what I know about biology and what I can see with my own eyes.

I have looked at the pictures of fetal development. That was some time ago. Thus I do not remember exactly how the fetus looks after so many weeks. Nevertheless I remember that the fetus looks human very early on. That is enough to tell me that abortion is the killing of a human being.

Before that point in fetal development biology teaches us that the embryo has all the unique DNA that the fully grown person will have. Thus conception is the only logical place to say that a new and unique human being has begun to exist. I am simply not willing to play God or to play the role of some murderer by saying that human life begins at any later place.

If any disagree with any of the above please do so by responding specifically to my points since the object is to convince people who think like me.

I just do not see the logic of Steinberg’s question or Zorn’s query to O’Callaghan.

Zorn’s query is legitimate – but it is basically a “gotcha” non sequitur.

The goal of the pro-lifers is to stop abortions. Then the pragmatic “means” should be the simplest path.

Civil fines might be the simplest path. Perhaps suspension of the medical licenses or nursing licenses of those involved.

Punishing the mothers or fathers or throwing doctors and nurses in jail will probably arouse too much opposition. Thus no need to open this can of worms at this time.
If we keep the goal in mind – then there is nothing inconsistent or hypocritical about choosing the simplest means or path to that goal.

I think there's a problem with the premise. There are women who kill their babies who commit murder. But there are also women who kill their babies who are very obviously mentally ill, often as a result of postpartum depression, which is very real. These are the mothers in a daze who toss a baby off a bridge. Horrifying, sad, strange, and recognized for centuries as a mental illness. These mothers today are not usually prosecuted for first degree murder.

Also, women and children die in childbirth, and always have. You can't insure childbirth against awful circumstances that can lead to the deaths of both the child and the mother. Every one knows this, but we forget to talk much about in these days. Is the dead child an awful circumstance or a murder? Is the dead mother a result of a horrible birth or a murder? Experience has proved that there are times where everything within the process of the birth has gone so wrong that neither the mother or the child could survive, so we give the doctors and midwives involved the benefit of the doubt. A doctor or hospital might be sued, but not prosecuted.

And how do you manage an ectopic pregnancy? Is used to be that a certain percentage of pregnant women would develop a fever and lay down and die. Nothing could be done to prevent the death. Modern medicine discovered that this was a result of a misplace fetus, growing somewhere other than the uterus and so both the baby and the mother died. These situations can now be diagnosed and if the mother gets to surgery in time, her life is saved and she can have a future pregnancy. Those people who insist on no abortion ever really, truly don't want women to die of ectopic pregnancies, but they can't also explain how a loving God who decides every leaf that falls allows a woman to have a killer pregnancy. It's not fate, it's not luck, it's a reproductive system that sometimes make a mistake that is no fault of the mother and what she ate, drank and what prayers she said.

So, where do you draw the line? What is a miscarriage and what is an abortion? What is an accident of a difficult childbirth and what is throwing away a baby? Why can't we prevent some women from going insane as a result of some pregnancy hormones?

Until pro-life folk can honestly talk about the known hazards of the reproductive life of women, that also includes rape, then we are not going to be able to have intelligent conversation about abortion.

The question posed by Steinberg is silly. He is acting as if abortion has never been illegal when, in fact, abortion was illegal in just about all of the United States for its first 200 years of existence so we have plenty of experience dealing with people who violate anti-abortion laws. As far as I know, women were not thrown in jail for having abortions back in the days when it was illegal.

ZORN REPLY -- I tell you what's silly: The effort of the "abortion is murder" folks to dance away from this question. This "we didn't do it before" response is utterly circular. Try again! Anyone? Anyone?

I read the Neil Steinberg article in full. I do no know Steinberg. Thus I will make no judgment regarding him. However, the Steinberg column is intellectually dishonest because it does not seek out and address the best arguments against his position. Basically Steinberg creates a flimsy straw man to demolish.

Compare this to Zorn above who does seek to put forth the best counter-arguments by posting the O’Callaghan comments.

Readers should not have to hope that someone like a O’Callaghan or a MCN will be around to give the other side.

When I was an University of Chicago student the standard procedure was for the professor to restate the student’s fumbling question in the strongest form possible – before destroying it.

That was the same procedure employed by Plato/Socrates in the opening chapters of THE REPUBLIC. Plato/Socrates believed that JUSTICE is some unchanging ideal. However, their arguments as to why that is not the case are among the best ever put forth.

The fact of the matter is that making abortion illegal is going to come with political compromises. What should the punishment be is really a secondary question. I believe that anyone who takes an innocent life should be thrown in jail - and that includes people who have, or perform, abortions. However, that probably isn't politically viable. If Roe is overturned, and if some states choose to ban abortions, there will be all kinds of exceptions and the punishment will be less than jail time. That might not be ideal but when you go for all or nothing, you often end up with nothing. That's why anti-abortion advocates should be willing to change things gradually with incremental measures.

Jimmy, abortion wasn't always illegal in this country, the reasons many states began to criminalize the practice may surprise you, sanctity of life wasn't one of them. It's also interesting that the number of abortions before Roe v Wade were about the same as they are now.

Let me partially correct my post. It is in L-ville, corner of IL 21 and 176.

But it is still fake, there is no clinic there.

Also, the place of the protesters changes! The old lady at 0.57 is clearly on the west side of IL 21, north of IL 176.

BUT the young woman at 2.39 is CLEARLY at the south side of 176, on the EAST side of IL 21?

Where oh where is this clinic allegedly at??

ZORN REPLY --- This insinuation might have more weight if it had been shown here or elsewhere that the anti abortion crowd really DOES have a good answer to this question and the video badly distorts the truth. So far, the video is basically a version of this comment thread.

A liberal/progressive is a fool to get all his learning from a liberal pundit who doesn’t even hint at the best arguments against his position. The same can be said for conservatives with respect to conservative pundits.

The risk is that when you debate a skilled opponent –he will make you look like an ignoramus.

Thus it is much, much better to read the Zorn blog with comments.

I post this not because I am a sycophantic yes-man kissass of Zorn – like some claim – no kidding. Rather it is the truth and it is payback for a few nice things that Zorn has done for me lately.

One can take the position that abortion is murder and yet call for punishments other than those for 1st degree murder. We already have numerous categories of homicide, ranging from manslaughter to murder 1. Some carry no penalty at all, such as killing in self-defense. For abortion, I would imagine one could take the view that the victim is not quite as human as a born baby and therefore the punishment would be based on stage of development - perhaps no punishment for an abortion performed a few days after conception, but murder charges for a baby killed days before its due date (assuming the life of the mother is not in danger of course).

ZORN REPLY -- A "few days" after conception? You're getting there. But you have made a concession that most in the anti side are unwilling to make -- cannot make -- that there is a continuum...that the developing embryo, fetus, baby acquires moral status as it moves along the gestational process. Make that concession and the other side might be inclined to meet you in the middle. Most antis won't, so the other side won't, either. Even though, I argue, the continuum perception is shared by the majority of Americans and is, in fact, the common sense way to view the issue.

Interesting question came up on the ultrasound thread, but I think it is more appropriate here. Wendy C brought up the discarding of viable embryos in fertility clinics. So here's the question; If life begins at conception, as many here argue, then wouldn't these fertility clinics be, in effect, mass murderers on a scale much worse than any abortion clinic out there? And if that's the case, why are these clinics not picketed? Is there some kind of formula based on a correlation of the age/ size of the fetuses and the number of fetuses destroyed that dictates which clinic is worse? Obviously that wouldn't make sense if every life starts at conception and is equally valuable though. So why are abortion clinics targeted and fertility clinics let off the hook for their "murders"?

Pat collins: That video has been around for several years & you are the first person to challenge its authenticity!
EZ linked to it a couple of years ago.
The fact is the video is true & not faked.
You antis just can't answer the question, will women be charged with a crime if they have an abortion?

ZORN REPLY -- I challenge the assertion that I linked to it a couple of years ago.

I am somewhat reluctant to engage you since I do not like you. And I say this about very few people on this blog. Nevertheless you raise a good point.

First read everything written by Greg J. and me on this thread.

Second, the pro-life people -- including MCN, the Roman Catholic Church, and I -- believe that the Petri-dish embryos are human life -- thus the opposition to stem cell research. For this reason we oppose in-vitro fertilization.

I know people who have had abortions or who have participated in abortions. Most of these people had very, very good reasons for what they did. However, all these reasons are trumped by the fact that they were destroying a human life.

Most of the pro-life people -- including me -- simply do not call these people murders to their faces -- or behind their backs -- because that would serve no purpose, it would be needlessly cruel, and the deed was already done.

Thus, I simply do not understand the logic of your argument.

However, let me make your argument in a form much better than you are making it – like I did with the haiku debate.

If I was in Nazi controlled Poland at the time the Jews were being sent to extermination camps – my firearms would be aimed at Nazis. Note that I am a non-Jew American of Polish ancestry.

However, I would never, never, use violence with regard to abortionists or abortion clinics. That may be logically inconsistent – yet I make the existential choice to live with that inconsistency.

Not sure I was making an argument, I was simply asking the question "Why are abortion clinics picketed while fertility clinics that discard embryos not?"

I understand that many on the "Pro-Life" side of the argument argue that life begins at conception, but I would like to know why those people are not up in arms over the fertility clinics too. So far I have not heard a reason.

As for JerryB's apparent disdain for me... I'm truly honored. (though strangely enough he didn't choose to reply to me on the Good Friday thread, but references it here as some sort of victory... hmmm?).

ZORN REPLY -- In fairness, I do believe that there are people who are exercised about discarding fertilized embryos.

I'm up in arms about the fertility clinics but I'm also practical about what the law can do. As I wrote above, anti-abortion advocates, like myself, have to be realistic about what we can achieve politically. If it were up to me, I would not allow innocent human life to be destroyed at all, and I would punish those who violated this rule. However, it's not up to me, and many people don't agree with me, and maybe the best we can do for now is compromise. By the way, this is true about everything from tax policy to foreign policy to just about any political topic out there. Some things can be punished appropriately in this world and some have to wait for the next.

@JerryB "Most of the pro-life people -- including me -- simply do not call these people murders to their faces -- or behind their backs -- because that would serve no purpose, it would be needlessly cruel, and the deed was already done.":

Regarding the deed being already done, that's true of murder as well. There are lots of reasons to lock up murderers and there are some reasons to grant clemency to murderers, but "the deed was already done" is usually not among the substantive reasons given.

"Needlessly cruel" is more interesting, though. Why? Isn't the point of all of this to change minds? Wouldn't these people be exactly the minds you'd want to change? And you *are* calling them murderers behind their back; what did you think you were doing when you equated abortion with murder up above?

That is indeed 176 and South Milwaukee. You don't recognize the opening where the guy is unloading the signs because it's the southeast corner of the intersection. That building was torn down maybe 2 or 3 years ago? The intersection was sometimes jammed up by trucks coming in and out during the tear down and excavation that was going on there. I waited in many long lines of traffic on 176 while that work was underway.

In that first interview, right after the signs are unloaded, we're looking down South Milwaukee, with the west side of the street in view. It appears that interview is taking place in front of the St. Joseph Formation Center. Same with the second interview (BP station in the background). The camera is shooting the interviews from different perspectives. In the fourth interview, a demonstrator is in front of the now vacant lot, camera looking north so it doesn't show the now demolished building behind, to the east, of the protester.

It appears the demonstrators were working at and near the east corners of the intersection.

I didn't read any mention of an abortion clinic on the Youtube page, nor does EZ mention an abortion clinic. Can you point me to the claim that this was a clinic protest? I couldn't find the link to Steinberg's facebook post. Did he make the claim there?

The whole stem-cell debate is about people being up in arms about what happens to embryos at fertility clinics. Haven’t you been reading the posts on this thread or listening to the news for the last several years?

I suspect that a legitimate point lurks in the Blahedo post. I suspect this because Blahedo is a first rate commenter on this blog. Perhaps the fault is mine for not being able to see the logic of the Blahedo post.

You are correct that I am GENERALLY calling people who have had abortions and those who facilitated abortions “murders”.

However, I do not call a specific Jane Doe a murderer since she probably will not ever have a second abortion. On the other hand – I would certainly call a specific doctor or nurse a murderer.

Since abortion is legal and since they will never be prosecuted for their moral crime – there is simply no point in hounding a particular women, her boyfriend or the mother or friend who drove them to the clinic.

Blahedo – I suspect that I still might be missing your point? Please clarify if you see the need.

ZORN REPLY -- I tell you what's silly: The effort of the "abortion is murder" folks to dance away from this question. This "we didn't do it before" response is utterly circular. Try again! Anyone? Anyone?

The questions involved in abortion are difficult and the pro-choice side dances away from plenty of them too. For example, when does this mass of tissue acquire human rights? Is it when it becomes viable? What exactly is the point of viability in this age of advancing medical technology? If it is OK kill a fetus before it is viable, what would be wrong with killing elderly people when they become unviable? What if a person kills a pregnant woman's fetus against her will? Is that murder? (I think it is).

In order to keep this thread semi-rigorous let me issue this clarification.

The pro-life people use “murderer” in the moral sense. Stalin and Mao were murderers even though they were never convicted of a crime and probably never violated any applicable law of the Soviet Union or Red China.

Of course abortion is legal in the United States and thus a person receiving an abortion or performing one can not be a ‘murderer’ in the legal sense.

It appears that Blahedo, Steinberg, and others are conflating the two meanings of the term. The result appears to me to be a logical mish-mash. Perhaps they are doing this on purpose. That is my suspicion.

Jerry writes, "It appears that Blahedo, Steinberg, and others are conflating the two meanings of the term" -- that is "murder" in the moral and legal sense.

No they're not. You're either flummoxed by Zorn's and Steinberg's challenges, or else you get it, but don't have a good answer. I suspect the latter, because you recognize that you choose to live with some "inconsistency" but do nothing to resolve it. Rather, you minimize the issue, feigning confusion, toss out a few sotto voce lame answers, give up entirely, mischaracterize the point, and rate everyone else's comments and how much you like them.

Here's the question: If you were king of the universe, would you punish abortion as the equivalent of murder (with all of the applicable defenses)? That would mean punishing the woman and the provider as premeditated murderers. It would mean not just sending them to jail, as Greg suggests, but sending them to prison for a very long time. In some states, it would mean the death penalty. Is that the law that you would enact if you could? That's a pretty simple yes or no, although if you want to give a longer answer, that's okay too.

If you would not, then it's hard to understand why not, given your view that a human life begins at conception. You suggest that there would be little point to such punishment, because the woman wouldn't repeat. But, even if that's true, that fact doesn't usually matter. A one-off, once-in-a-lifetime murder is still murder, and we all agree should be punished, and punished severely, for penal reasons and deterrence reasons.

You say that you are reluctant to call people who have abortions -- who, ahem, murder their children -- "murderers," even behind their backs, because that would "serve no purpose" because the "deed has been done." Come on, Jerry. You're not accepting the premise, which is that abortion is really, truly, honest-to-God murder. You would of course call any other sort of murderer a "murderer." You would not find it "cruel" to call such a person a murderer. You would not bend over backwards to extend real murderers such lavish courtesies by saving them the cruelty of calling them what they are.

You yourself make the nice comparison to Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. You concede that your guns would have been trained on the Nazis, and, indeed, I think most of us would agree that violence to stop the Holocaust would be justified and maybe even morally required. How again is a massive, daily mass-murder of infants different? So, you succeed in the first part of the U. of C. trick -- you make the student's argument the best it can be. But you don't do the second part -- destroying it. Instead, you give up, conceding inconsistency.

I don't think that you or Greg would really punish abortion -- all abortion (except those performed to save the mother) -- as full-fledged murder given your druthers. I think you both avoid coming out and saying that you would -- downplaying the point, saying that you're constrained by politics, etc., suggesting, meekly, that a premeditated murderer might end up doing a little jail time, or suggesting, meekly, that calling murderers murderers might hurt their feelings -- because, in the end you wouldn't, and you wouldn't because you recognize what is obvious, which is that conception does not instantly make a human.

Actually to me that most "dishonest" argument by the pro-life force is the one in those commercials: My mother was single and poor, but she had me and here I am doing great things so therefore this is proof that abortion is wrong."

On THAT theory you could say. "My mother could have waited til she was grown and married and could afford it before she had sex but thank goodness she didnt' and had sex in the back of her boyfriends car at age 16 because otherwise I wouldn't be here and I'm doing great things so ...."

Here's my best crack at an actual answer to this question: We see human life as beginning at conception. We *wish* that the rest of society saw it that way. We recognize that it doesn't -- yet. Therefore, we would find it cruel to punish people severely who are laboring under what we regard to be a grave mistake but who, we must concede, don't have malice in their hearts. Rather, they are confused. Perhaps one day, we hope, most everyone will see it how we see it, and we would then endorse punishing abortion as straight-up murder, which we wouldn't really mind at all in a perfect world.

But even that position is shot through with a deference that's inconsistent with the honestly-held view that abortion is actually murder. After all, if a whole society were to treat some group of people as less than human, we'd have little patience for its honest error, its philosophical difference. We would condemn it in no uncertain terms -- at least I would.

The tension here is that it's obvious that, say, Jews are people, or, say, women are people. It's not so obvious when it comes to a zygote (which, if I'm not mistaken, is where you all are drawing your line). In fact, it's sort of obviously *not* a person. As Zorn says, I think most people see a continuum here. Add to that the complicating fact that zygotes, embryos, and fetuses are physically attached to a fully developed, autonomous person, and you've got a sui generis situation that defies easy "logical" shortcuts -- i.e., "abortion is murder" -- and instead calls for far more nuanced consideration.

Greg J., you, and I are skilled lawyers. We certainly use our lawyerly skills when posting. However, I believe the three of us post with absolute honesty. As I said on another thread – I only compete with myself. You are the stone I grind against to polish myself. I am sure the same is true for you against me. Thus I will engage you head on with all the honesty within me.

The linchpin of your two posts is your question:

[…If you were king of the universe, would you punish abortion as the equivalent of murder (with all of the applicable defenses)? That would mean punishing the woman and the provider as premeditated murderers. It would mean not just sending them to jail, as Greg suggests, but sending them to prison for a very long time. In some states, it would mean the death penalty. Is that the law that you would enact if you could? That's a pretty simple yes or no, although if you want to give a longer answer, that's okay too.]

If I were god – I would be a kind and loving god. Thus I would try my best to emulate Jesus Christ and the Buddha. On the Good Friday thread I said the following in a totally different context which I will repeat here to demonstrate that I am not just making stuff up on the spot to out lawyer you:

---There are no mandatory rituals. However, Catholic churches offer rituals to help focus the mind on the wider significance of the crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ. The basic ritual is/are THE STATIONS OF THE CROSS.

This is the symbolic reenactment of the condemnation of Jesus to death by the Roman authorities; his torture by scourging; his journey with the cross on his back to the hill of the crucifixion; the nailing to the cross; his last words; and his death.

It is my understanding that the essence of the Jewish position regarding earthly suffering is set forth in the Book of Job. Please feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

The Christian -- and especially the Roman Catholic tradition -- takes a different approach.
Because humans are created in the image and likeness of God, we are endowed with a ‘free will.” This free will necessarily entails the ability to do good as well as to do evil. Inherent in this freedom and in our mortality – is suffering.

Certainly God can create an existence without suffering – but then this would not be an existence in which “free will” is inherent.

Both Buddhism and Christianity realize that human existence thus necessarily entails suffering. But what is a loving God to do? Answer: He can partake of this suffering by being fully human as well as being fully God. In essence this is God stripping himself of his divinity. This was done in the person of Jesus Christ.
The classic phrase is “THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH AND HE DWELT AMONG US.”

Thus Jesus Christ as God joins in solidarity with humanity to partake of human suffering as one fully human.

This is the significance of Good Friday for me.---

Thus JakeH – if I was god – I would not be into all this “punishing stuff.” Rather the mantra of punish, punish, punish is a flimsy straw man that Steinberg and you have erected.

If I was this kind and loving god – I would know all – and I would be able to see into the heart of each wrongdoer. Thus any punishment would be exactly proportional to the exact circumstances of the wrongdoer. Earlier in this thread I conceded:

“I know people who have had abortions or who have participated in abortions. Most of these people had very, very good reasons for what they did. However, all these reasons are trumped by the fact that they were destroying a human life.”

Thus I would punish the unwed teenage girl the least and the for profit abortion doctor the most. The for profit abortion doctor would get the same punishment as the Mafia kingpin who ordered the murder of others. As a kind and loving god – I would be lenient towards the unwed teenage girl. I really see no inconsistency here.

It is my understanding that at a “D&C and Then Vacuum” procedure one of the assisting nurses has to account for all the body parts for fear of infection if anything is left behind. Thus its – we got two arms here, two legs there, now I see the torso and the head. That really looks like murder to me. In all honesty that is my true emotion.

The fact that I could probably shoot Nazis but would never do violence towards an abortion doctor or a clinic is irrelevant with respect to my revulsion of the body part counting of the preceding paragraph. If you see any inconsistency – best to chalk it up to cowardice on my part.

I simply can not work my way past the following:

----Let’s define terms. “Homicide” is the taking of a human life. “Murder” is the unjustified taking of a human life.

I will concede that self-defense, a just war, and the life of the mother are legitimate justifications for homicide.

I will grudgingly concede that rape and underage incest MIGHT be justifications. I am very troubled by and unsure of that concession. MCN might convince me one way. Others might convince me the other way.

But now let’s be rigorous.

I concede that the right of any person to control their body is a very important right. However, I just do not understand how that right justifies the taking of a human life.

Finally, abortion is homicide, it is the taking of a human life. For me, this is not based on any religious dogma. Rather it is obvious from what I know about biology and what I can see with my own eyes.

I have looked at the pictures of fetal development. That was some time ago. Thus I do not remember exactly how the fetus looks after so many weeks. Nevertheless I remember that the fetus looks human very early on. That is enough to tell me that abortion is the killing of a human being.

Before that point in fetal development biology teaches us that the embryo has all the unique DNA that the fully grown person will have. Thus conception is the only logical place to say that a new and unique human being has begun to exist. I am simply not willing to play God or to play the role of some murderer by saying that human life begins at any later place.---------

I suppose the atheists have an easier time with drawing the line somewhere after conception. Certainly they are not concerned about ‘playing god.’ And as the character Ivan Karamazov in Dostoevsky’s THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV states: “If there is no God – then all things are permitted.”

Of course – any society that wants to continue functioning -- can not permit “all things.”
But then the formulation merely becomes: “All things are permitted unless outlawed by positive law.” And as you know “positive law” refers to the manmade law enacted by some nation-state or other legal entity. Thus in the United States abortion is permitted because it is permitted – and issues of morality are irreverent for the atheist.

But now you may be jumping up and down saying “not so fast JerryB – atheist may not believe in God but they certainly believe in some type of universal moral order –in essence – some Platonic Ideal of Justice.”

My response – now look who is being inconsistent. Some “universal moral order” – is certainly approaching some conception of a god.

It's flat out amazing how the antis will continue this absurd dance around the question!

Just answer it: Assuming you could make it totally illegal, do you want or even believe that a woman who gets an abortion should be charged with any or all of the following?
*Murder
*Solicitation to commit murder
*Conspiracy to commit murder

The only possible answer is either YES or NO.
Which is it?

Then it follows, what punishment?
*Life in prison
*Sterilization
*Mandatory pregnancy to term to replace the aborted fetus
*Execution

---Oh, heavens to Betsy, Eric, don't you know that we poor silly women are just far too hysterical to be held responsible for those big, bad abortion doctors who prey on our innocent babies? How can a woman be held responsible for a decision she was obviously coerced into and which she doesn't understand?

That, in a nutshell, is Ms. O'Callaghan's answer and the only "logical" answer you'll get from the right-wingers.

I'm surprised that my practicality about what can be done vs. what should be done doesn't sit well with you and some others. When the response to one of my comments is "I don't believe you" then my usual response is "well, ok, then I'll go have a drink." In this case though, I'll elaborate.

The religious side of me says "don't focus on the punishment, focus on advocating the culture of life - some punishments aren't for man to give anyway." The conservative side of me says "when innocent human life is destroyed there has to be punishment but be realistic about what you can achieve." The libertarian side of me says "this is really about competing rights - the right to make a medical decision vs. the right to live - and design a punishment under that framework."

I hear my pro-abortion friends say that they don't have all of the answers. Well, neither does the anti-abortion side. This is a tough issue for anyone.

It's also hard for a lot of conservatives (who tend to be anti-abortion) to address a question like this because it is so unlikely to ever come true (i.e., where we get to design our own punishment). After all, lesson #1 for budding conservatives is "don't immanetize the eschaton." Most conservatives are practical thinkers and they recognize that there are limits to what the law can or should achieve. As I've written many times here, I don't believe that the 14th Amendment should be read to outlaw abortion - that's quite a limitation given my beliefs. In a recent thread, I expressed the view that taxpayers don't have standing to challenge government expenditures - that's no small limitation either.

I don't know what you mean when you discuss punishing abortion as a full-fledged murder. As you well know, there are different punishments for murder depending on the circumstances. In cases where there is a great deal of understandable emotion or stress involved, whether it's a heat-of-the-moment decision or more calculated, there is somewhat less of a punishment than for other types of killings. Where does the punishment for abortion fit on the spectrum? Ask five anti-abortion types and you'll get five different answers.

We're not being meek about this, we're being practical. We also recognize that this is a tough, emotional issue that is being settled in the political arena. Therefore, it's not in our best interests to go around talking about the punishments we'd like to impose if abortion is made illegal in State X. That's just not a smart way to go about winning hearts and minds to embrace a culture of respecting human life, which is what this debate is really about.

ZORN REPLY -- Wikipedia tells us " In political theory and theology, to immanentize the eschaton means trying to bring about the eschaton (the final, heaven-like stage of history) in the immanent world. It has been used by conservative critics, foremost William F. Buckley, as a pejorative reference to certain utopian projects, such as socialism, communism and transhumanism. In all these contexts it means "trying to make that which belongs to the afterlife happen here and now (on Earth)" or "trying to create heaven here on Earth."

Not sure how exactly that applies here, but you prove the point, Greg -- you avoid the question because it exposes the consequences of your logic when you claim that "abortion is murder."
Your answer -- don't talk about the logical consequences of our viewpoint...that will only upset people.
Is it not enough, though, however, to simply promote your argument in the public sphere -- to try to win hearts and minds without trying to turn such a victory into a legal mandate? Advocate for a culture of life, but when your advocacy fails in individual cases, don't try to impose your view using the force of law.

RE: Conception
JerryB said "Because humans are created in the image and likeness of G-d, we are endowed with a ‘free will.” This free will necessarily entails the ability to do good as well as to do evil. Inherent in this freedom and in our mortality – is suffering."

Well said, and I believe that is an accurate description of the Christian approach to suffering. I also believe that all human beings have free will. But here's my sticking point... does a one-day old zygote have free-will? How about at 3-months? 6-months? I would argue no to all because the embryo/ zygote can not possibly survive without being attached to the mother (or some other outside assistance, in the case of an incubator, say). What free will can this entity have if its only means of survival is dependence on the mother? It ceratinly does not have the "will to power" in the Nietzschean sense.

So here's the rub; if all human beings have free will, while embryos, fetuses and zygotes do not, wouldn't the transitive property then dictate that embryos, fetuses and zygotes are not yet human beings since they do not have the human prerequisite of free will? I will definitely grant that the embryos, fetuses and zygotes are some form of life, as I believe most here would, but not yet a human being.

One more question too: If life begins at conception why does the Catholic Church not hold funeral services for miscarried pregnancies? Isn't that, afterall, a loss of human life that should be celebrated or sanctified in some way?

Nah, you're pro-abortion. If the decision to have an abortion is a "choice", so is the decision whether to smash or not to smash your child's head with a mallet. That is, one of the consequences is evil.

Since you use the “G-d” – I see you are from the Jewish tradition. I am glad to have someone from that tradition looking at these issues. I do NOT presume to have a deep understanding of that tradition although I have made major efforts.

It is my understanding that many religious traditions hold that human life begins at some point after conception. It is my further understanding that many of these traditional conceptions were formed in ancient times before the modern scientific understanding of what is involved in conception – the creation of an entity with unique human DNA. You know the drill –the man had the seed that was planted in the fertile soil of the womb.

Please reread my above post captioned “Second Continuation for JakeH.” I simply and honestly can not get past this point. As you can see my point of view is NOT derived from any religious tradition.

I will certainly concede that the embryo, the fetus, the young child, and the cognitively disabled do not have such a “free will [that] necessarily entails the ability to do good as well as to do evil.”

Yet – for me – this has nothing to do with the abortion issue since I can not get past my formulation of the issue as set forth in my “Second Continuation for JakeH.” I can not also get past the counting of severed body parts inherent in a typical abortion procedure.

"I'm surprised that my practicality about what can be done vs. what should be done doesn't sit well with you and some others. When the response to one of my comments is 'I don't believe you' then my usual response is 'well, ok, then I'll go have a drink.' In this case though, I'll elaborate."

I didn't say I didn't believe you, but rather that I didn't think that you actually supported punishing abortion as murder. This post of yours is further evidence of that, as you continue to avoid the question.

"The religious side of me says 'don't focus on the punishment, focus on advocating the culture of life - some punishments aren't for man to give anyway.'"

Do you think that it is for man to punish murderers? If not, you'd advocate serious reform of our criminal law. Would you be equally reluctant to focus on punishment in cases of actual murder? I wouldn't.

"The conservative side of me says 'when innocent human life is destroyed there has to be punishment but be realistic about what you can achieve.'"

Yes, yes, we understand that punishing abortion as murder is not politically possible right now. That's beside the point of the question, which is whether it's your goal. For the umpteenth time, given your druthers, would you punish abortion as murder?

"The libertarian side of me says 'this is really about competing rights - the right to make a medical decision vs. the right to live - and design a punishment under that framework.'"

Okay, that's significant -- an acknowledgement of the woman's unique liberty interest. Do you think that that interest justifies "murder"? Do you think that it's a mitigating factor that would sharply reduce the punishment?

"I hear my pro-abortion friends say that they don't have all of the answers. Well, neither does the anti-abortion side. This is a tough issue for anyone."

Agreed, but wouldn't the murkiness of the issue counsel against saying that abortion equals murder, or that abortion equals "evil," as you did on the other thread?

"It's also hard for a lot of conservatives (who tend to be anti-abortion) to address a question like this because it is so unlikely to ever come true (i.e., where we get to design our own punishment)."

Nonsense. You are a smart person who is capable of abstract thought. As such, you should have no difficulty in addressing this hypothetical question.

"After all, lesson #1 for budding conservatives is 'don't immanetize the eschaton.' Most conservatives are practical thinkers and they recognize that there are limits to what the law can or should achieve."

So, the law should stay out of it? I agree! Do you? If you think the law should intervene, as I gather you do, how do you think it should intervene? These are pretty basic questions about a major political issue. I'm sure you've thought about it before. Do you have any answers? Are you just unsure?

"As I've written many times here, I don't believe that the 14th Amendment should be read to outlaw abortion - that's quite a limitation given my beliefs."

Not sure how it could be seen to outlaw abortion, but fine.

"In a recent thread, I expressed the view that taxpayers don't have standing to challenge government expenditures - that's no small limitation either."

Huh? What does that have to do with abortion? Would you criminalize abortion *at all*? All this tap-dancing really

"I don't know what you mean when you discuss punishing abortion as a full-fledged murder."

I mean simply applying the homicide law to abortions based on the premise that an embryo or fetus is a human being.

"As you well know, there are different punishments for murder depending on the circumstances. In cases where there is a great deal of understandable emotion or stress involved, whether it's a heat-of-the-moment decision or more calculated, there is somewhat less of a punishment than for other types of killings. Where does the punishment for abortion fit on the spectrum? Ask five anti-abortion types and you'll get five different answers."

You might be thinking of "heat-of-passion" killings, which involve an immediate reaction to a provocation and can reduce murder to manslaughter. Abortions are never that. Rather, they are (to take the fetus=infant position seriously), deliberate, planned, premeditated murders that would almost always -- except where the procedure was necessary as self-defense or defense of others -- qualify as the most serious crime on the books and call for the most severe punishment.

"We're not being meek about this, we're being practical. We also recognize that this is a tough, emotional issue that is being settled in the political arena. Therefore, it's not in our best interests to go around talking about the punishments we'd like to impose if abortion is made illegal in State X. That's just not a smart way to go about winning hearts and minds to embrace a culture of respecting human life, which is what this debate is really about."

Okay, so you don't want to answer the question, because you're afraid that people will think you're nuts. How about you just answer the question here among friends?

I see no reason to permit the pro-abortion side to frame the terms of debate. Rather, let us ask them exactly what restrictions they would accept on abortion, and why?

If none, say so, and why.

If not, should a doctor be permitted to euthanize (i.e., murder) a baby who was intended to be aborted but nonetheless survived the procedure. Some would hold so.

May a doctor abort a child who's head is in the birth canal? If so, why.

May a woman who is bearing a healthy baby and who herself has no physical health risks be permitted to have a third trimester abortion? If so, why?

Same question, second term abortion.

More generally, at what time and for what reasons may a woman have a free right to abortion? Or, phrased another way, at what point does the baby's right to life trump the mother's right to abort? When the baby has a heart beat? Brain activity? At viability? At no time.

I simply can not see the LOGIC of the Steinberg Article or Zorn’s reformulation as set forth in the 4/11/11 9:53 AM post.

Are they in essence saying:

“Human life does NOT begin at conception and ‘pro-choice’ is the correct position BECAUSE the pro-life people do not want to punish the unwed teenage mother-to-be as harshly as they would a Mafia hit man.”

Note in all honesty – even if I could see the LOGIC – I would not accept it for the reasons stated above.

I would apply homicide law to abortions based on the premise that an embryo or fetus is human life, if not a fully-formed human being. That's what I wrote in my comment from yesterday at 4:18PM (see second sentence). The rest of what I wrote above is explaining the why and how of the practical choices that we have to make in order to persuade people to agree with us and impose reasonable legal consequences.

You assert that if the pro-life advocates were willing to make concessions from the "no abortion at all/life begins at conception" position, the anti-life side would be willing to make concessions so as to meet in the middle.

OK, I'll bite, but I need something from you, first:

Exactly what concessions to restrictions on abortion would NARAL and NOW and the 20% of the population who agrees with them be willing to make on abortion?

Answer: None.

So how is anyone to meet in the middle? I, in fact, am willing to lawfully permit abortion in some circumstances, simply because I would be able to prohibit it in others. But my adversaries don't show any willingness to do the same. So why even ask the question? Surely, you must know better than I how hard the pro-abortion feminist left is on this position.

So what's the point?

ZORN REPLY -- It's a total hypothetical, but I'd guess that if both sides could agree to shed this issue forever -- with, say, an Constitutional amendment -- that you might get a 24-week dividing line...anything before 24 weeks is up to the woman and her doctor, anything after that is forbidden by law unless a disinterested medical panel determines continuing the pregnancy would endanger the life of the mother. You might even get 20 weeks...something at or near the "viability" line.
But, as I said, talk of such compromise is anathema to the abortion rights movement for reasons I totally understand. They give an inch, and the other side --which see a microscopic embryo as deserving legal protection -- simply wants another inch.
That's the way this debate is. And despite Greg's touching "faith" that society will change on this issue, I suspect that our grandchildren will be nattering at each other on the same terms with the same basic split in the population using some vastly superior social networking techniques.

Question - when did the St Thomas Aquinas "life begins at 'quickening'" - around the 5th month - that used to be the belief change to "life begins at conception"? Especially since now the science has improved to the point that we know that very few fertilized eggs actually implant & become pregnancies able to be carried to term? Should all women of child-bearing age have to document that they did not deliberately stop that implantation (or should they just stay in bed every month until it works)? Much like some would like women to have to justify to the IRS that they had an abortion due to rape, or that the miscarriage they just had was not an abortion?

Greg writes, "I would apply homicide law to abortions based on the premise that an embryo or fetus is human life, if not a fully-formed human being."

Thanks for continuing to engage, but I think you're still being slippery. You make a distinction here between "human life" on the one hand and "a fully-formed human being" on the other. The homicide law, of course, makes no such distinction. Would you punish abortion, or at least some early abortions, as a lesser form of homicide based on this distinction? What do you think is an appropriate sentence for a woman who has committed an abortion-homicide? Ten years? Two? Twenty? Would that change depending on when in the term the person had the abortion?

[So, Jerry, if I read you right, you would punish abortion is murder, given your druthers, right? Yes or no?]

Yes – but we need to define the “punish” part of “punish abortion as murder.”

JakeH – my comrade in arms – we are beginning to go around in circles. Thus we are coming close to that point where we have to simply say – let the readers decide.

My thinking is clearly and forcefully set forth in my many posts on this thread. I also adopt all the posts of Greg J. to the extent they do not conflict with mine. (I see very little conflict.) Nevertheless – if you demand a simplistic sound bite quote –I will give you one.

“Except for the exceptions I noted above – abortion is murder. Thus both the unwed teenage girl and the for profit abortion doctor are murders. However, for the many reasons set forth by Geg J. and me above – I would probably treat the unwed teenage girl with extreme leniency and the for profit abortion doctor with extreme harshness.
Probably the guilt the unwed teenage girl will feel throughout her life is punishment enough."

MCN:
1. We're not anti-life.
But your side is as you would sacrifice the life of an otherwise healthy pregnant woman if the choice were to save her or save the prospective baby.
A nun running a Catholic hospital in Arizona made that choice, to save the mother & abort the fetus. She was excommunicated & the hospital is no longer considered Catholic.
Your side would destroy a family for the sake of, well what? A child that now doesn't have a mother? She can have another baby, but the baby will grow up without a mother in family that will suffer & blame that child for the mother's death.
2. Your claim "thousands and thousands and thousands of women are coerced every year into having abortions by their families, boyfriends and husbands." is absurd. Prove that over 6,000 women are coerced into abortions every years.
"thousands and thousands and thousands" means a minimum of 6,000, but probably much, much more!
You can't, you're creating numbers out of thin air.

Simply because someone committed to a cause is not willing to carry their views to a logical, extreme conclusion presumed by an ideological opponent does not, necessarily, by itself, delegitimize a particular political position.

Steinberg and those who find his approach clever, brilliant or even interesting is attempting to ask an extreme question and then using the seemingly logically inconsistent response from his opponents to poke holes in their argument and delegitimize the pro-life (or anti-abortion, if you prefer) position.

However, what if the subject were altered? I know we have a number of regulars on this board who with all their hearts believe that the burning of carbon-based fuels is flooding the atmosphere with carbon dioxide that is now and will continue to induce climate change that is now and will continue to lead to misery, devastation and suffering for humans and animals the world around.

So, do those who believe in human-induced climate change believe that all people should be forbidden to use natural gas, oil, electricity or wood to heat their homes during the winter and power their homes at all other times of the year, and that violators be prosecuted? If the "science is settled" and human-induced climate change will have the incredible repercussions those who believe in it claim, then why should people still be allowed to burn carbon-based fuels for any reason?

If you're willing to play Steinberg's game, then you should be willing to answer this one, as well.

You said: “But here's my sticking point... does a one-day old zygote have free-will? How about at 3-months? 6-months? I would argue no to all because the embryo/ zygote can not possibly survive without being attached to the mother (or some other outside assistance, in the case of an incubator, say). What free will can this entity have if its only means of survival is dependence on the mother?”

- It seems to me then, that your definition of viability (ability to survive on your own accord in a given set of conditions) is really more grounded in one’s environment, correct? The environment in this case would be the womb or a test tube as both environments are what zygotes need to mature. So what you’re really saying is that if human zygote cannot survive without a stable environment then it’s not really a human being with free will. But what you’re doing here is adding the conditional of the “environment” to the being (or non-being) of a human and their free will. This reasoning is utterly fallacious however and can be used to justify the elimination of any being (mature or immature). If a put a 1 year old baby in a pool and it drowns, I can simply argue that since it couldn’t swim, it wasn’t viable for life in a pool. Therefore, it’s certainly not my fault for placing it in the pool and ending its life maturing process. Or I could place you in the middle of the desert and when you die of exposure, I can say, “well, he certainly wasn’t very viable was he?…He was too dependent on “livable” environmental conditions. But oh well, it’s not murder b/c he wasn’t viable.” Do you see the ridiculousness of this type of reasoning?

So, as far as you claiming a zygote doesn’t have free-will based on viability….I really don’t see how you make ANY connection between these two. Clearly, NO zygote can survive without SURVIVABLE conditions!!! By removing those conditions and then saying that since it didn’t survive, therefore it’s not a human being, therefore it’s not murder…..is absolutely mindboggling and wholly illogical.

If abortions were illegal and homicide law was applicable, it would be pretty tricky to actually prove that one occurred if there was no taping of the procedure. This is especially true after the first trimester as the woman's hormone levels would be much closer to pre-pregnancy levels. You would have very little accurate proof that a pregnancy even occurred. Some women don't ever get the hormone levels at a rate that would show pregnancy. She could have had a naturally occuring miscarriage, anyway. That, by the way, is NOT an uncommon occurence in the first trimester. So then to get to the really horrible part... I would assume, then, to prove guilt in an abortion, you'd need proof of the existence of and DNA connection to an aborted fetus. I can't imagine how awful that type of investigation would be.

JerryB, thank you for your reply, and although you have previously said you don't like me I am pleased that you are not letting those personal opinions get in the way of the discussion here. Furthermore, I appreciate that your opinions are not based on dogma, although I would still say that there are many on the "Pro-Life" side that do base their arguments primarily on religious dogma. As I'm sure you're aware, if dogma is to be the principle basis of an argument there should be consistency of principles within that dogma. So in this case, I'm confused as to how the Catholic Church can state that human life begins at conception but then not have funerals for miscarriages... for if they're human beings in the eyes of the Church shouldn't their deaths be venerated in the same way as any other human being, no matter the age?

I should also admit that I am not entirely convinced as to when a human life begins... it is definitely a gray area for me. I'd like to say it begins when the first breath of air enters the little one's lungs ("breathe life into"), but I concede this may cause legal problems w/r/t how to charge somebody for harming a fetus in a woman WITHOUT consent (e.g. in the event of an attack on a pregnant woman that results in the loss of the fetus, et al), but I feel this could be addressed legally in some fashion or another (maybe a specific penalty for harming a fetus WITHOUT consent, or, G-d forbid, and I can't believe I'm actually saying this, applying some sort of violation of 'property rights' to the situation, although I don't really believe that and I'm probably going to get lambasted for even mentioning it... and let me also state that I am not a lawyer so I'm not sure how that could work- just spitballin' here). However, I am also conflicted on the "first breath" idea because I will freely concede that if the little one popped out a day earlier, it would be able to function and breathe on its own, but that would not be the case at month 4... so where do we draw the line? I don't have the answer either.

And in the interest of full disclosure, I grew up in a mixed household with the competing influences of Judaism and Quakerism (odd mix, I know)... and though I do not necessarily practice or adhere to either I have respect for both and was certainly influenced by both through my formative years (please note that this does not indicate that I have a disrespect for any other religion though; I view them all, even my own, through equally skeptical eyes).

Garry, I've never really thought about you as a serious participant on this board and you latest post confirms why.

If you knew anything about canon law--and you obviously don't--you would understand why what happened, happened.

You might try looking it up yourself. Or you might politely ask me to explain. But I don't think you're making a good faith inquiry here nor would you care about the answer anyway;, I think you're just using this to take shots at the Church's positions because that's what you do.

By the way, you're anti-life. If my side is anti-abortion (a term your side uses all the time), you're going to have to live with being called pro-abortion (the opposite of your preferred name for me), and you're going to have to live with it when MY side frames the debate, i.e., if we're pro-life, you're anti-life.

Live with it. The game isn't always going to be played by your rules.

My statement about women being coerced/"strongly encouraged" to have abortions against their will is based on survey evidence I have read in the last six months. I'm not interested in citing the article or source because, again, I don't think you have a good faith interest in the answer.

I hasten to add that I add Pan in your category, but none of my other ideological opponents on this board, with whom I disagree but at least we argue in good faith.

"(A)bortion is the price our country...accept(s) as the cost of being the kind of society we want to be.... Nobody likes abortion, but if we want a society where 60 percent of adult women are in the work force, where women have control over their lives and do not depend on their menfolk to tell them what to do — then those deaths are not murder."

In other words, expediency. The price we have to pay to be the kind of society we want to be is to dispose of inconvenient lives. If abortion is necessary for us to be the kind of society we want to be, then it is not murder.

I suppose, under that logic, one could say, "If killing that guy over there and taking his money would give me the life I want to live then it is not murder."

The Soviets made a living off this argument for a long time: Killing off the middle class and kulaks, creating a man-made famine that killed off five, six, nine million people, exterminating people merely because of their class status, all of this was justified in the name of the proletariat and the Revolution.

===Great point Jimmy G. We need to determine whether life has intrinsic moral value BEFORE we determine whether a life might be "inconvenient" or not. If life DOES have intrinsic moral value, then "inconvenience" can never trump that value. Steinberg would do well to recognize that.

A lot of young, immature kids/teenagers get coerced into holding the gun/driving the getaway car/acting as look-out/etc. Guess what, they still get arrested, go to jail, get tried and sentenced, serve time in prison, etc. So if abortion is murder and a woman gets "coerced" into having an abortion, shouldn't she still be held responsible, at least to the degree that her pretty-little-head lets her be responsible?

ZORN REPLY -- And of course the irony is that our conservative friends tend to have NO sympathy for teenaged boys caught up in webs of crime and misfortune -- who are "coerced" into gang activity and get "brainwashed" into thinking predatory activity is normative. They want to try them as adults and lock them up forever.

Dienne, see my comment to Garry on another thread. But since you're polite, I read some survey data recently in First Things. Also, as a matter of common sense, if it stands to reason that many teenage girls who would like to abort their children but whose families prevent it (it does), it stands to reason that many women abort their children because their families insist on it or their boyfriends will dump them.

The irony is that abortion on demand has made it more likely that women who want to keep their babies will get abortions. The threat is "you're pregnant, it's your problem, here's $500 or we never see each other again."

You don't think that isn't coercion? When the woman is living with the man and he's her primary means of support? And he threatens to bolt if she doesn't get an abortion? And she already has kids and she's hosed if he doesn't stick around? And she's caught between a rock and hard spot? Are you kidding?

MCN help us out on this one. Bruce L asks: "So in this case, I'm confused as to how the Catholic Church can state that human life begins at conception but then not have funerals for miscarriages... for if they're human beings in the eyes of the Church shouldn't their deaths be venerated in the same way as any other human being, no matter the age?"

Bruce L -- although I was educated for 12 years in religious schools -- I am not a practicing Catholic. MCN is big-time.

I know Catholics who have had misscarriages. I never asked for details. I believe that the fetus is treated with reverence -- but that there are not full fledged funerals. I am sure your are sophiscated and thus know that full fledged funerals in modern societies are much more for the benefit of the living than for the dead. You know -- helps people work through grief.

Dienne, I've heard peabrains like Katha Pollit use that term. I laugh myself silly when I hear it.

I would prefer to see a civilized debate using terms we can reasonably agree to. I'm not agreeing to "anti-choice" because that is a false framing of the discussion. I often see my side described as "anti-abortion" in the liberal press. Then, surely, you cannont object to being called its opposite, "pro-abortion", can you?

Can. 1183
§2. The local ordinary can permit children whom the parents intended to baptize but who died before baptism to be given ecclesiastical funerals.

Can. 1184 §1. Unless they gave some signs of repentance before death, the following must be deprived of ecclesiastical funerals:

1/ notorious apostates, heretics, and schismatics;

2/ those who chose the cremation of their bodies for reasons contrary to Christian faith;

3/ other manifest sinners who cannot be granted ecclesiastical funerals without public scandal of the faithful.

§2. If any doubt occurs, the local ordinary is to be consulted, and his judgment must be followed.

Can. 1185 Any funeral Mass must also be denied a person who is excluded from ecclesiastical funerals.

People like Ted Kennedy should have been denied a Catholic funeral under 1184 and 1185 unless he repented of his anti-life view on his death bed. Frances Kissling should get the same treatment, as should any other pro-abortion purportedly Catholic politician.

Jorge
Does viability equal free-will? I think my post is closer to asking "does free-will require viability?". But my real question is do you think an embryo has free-will? If so, I would love an explanantion as to why and how.

You say "So what you’re really saying is that if human zygote cannot survive without a stable environment then it’s not really a human being with free will". No, I asked "What free will can this entity have if its only means of survival is dependence on the mother?". You added the environmental condition, which I find just silly. If you left me in the desert I may die, but I also COULD survive by drinking water and leaving the desert (on my own free-will). A baby in a pool may drown, but CAN survive by simply leaving the water (on its own free-will). An embryo at one day CANNOT survive in any natural environment outside the womb and does not have the free-will, imo, to leave the environment it occupies.

Note that the argument here was based on a previous statement: "Because humans are created in the image and likeness of G-d, we are endowed with a ‘free will.” This free will necessarily entails the ability to do good as well as to do evil. Inherent in this freedom and in our mortality – is suffering." Thus, if free-will is a requisite for humans, as described in the aforementioned comment, then an embryo without free-will can not yet be human, Right?
So my question stands: do you believe that an embryo/ zygote/ fetus has free-will?

@EZ: Thank you for the very reasonable response. Let us assume that tomorrow Roe is reversed and the matter of abortion is thrown back into the states.

You have made a proposal which would be acceptable to many, perhaps even a majority of the people.

But it would be completely unacceptable to NARAL, NOW and their supporters. Completely unsupportable. Pro-lifers like me are amendable to some kind of compromise, but NARAL is not because if they give an inch, they are forced to admit that the right to abortion is maybe conditioned, and who knows where they will end up.

So, as I said, which is the uncompromising side here?

ZORN REPLY -- Both sides are. The anti abortion rights side won't -- can't -- give on the idea that in the first tri-mester...the first hours, even.... the fetus has less than full human rights. It will not go with the continuum argument -- go read my debate with Nora, linked above -- because without that idea, the anti-abortion movement becomes judgmental and somewhat incoherent. A pretty good book on this debate is called "A Clash of Absolutes," and it outlines better than I have why the pole won't and can't budge.
Really, though, women aren't waddling in for whimsical abortions past fetal viability in any great number. The "she wants to fit into her prom dress" abortion is a myth of the right. I've known many women who've had abortions, none took it lightly and few, to this day, regret it. Most -- I can't say all because I've lost touch with some of them -- now have children.

I would prefer to hold a woman criminally liable for obtaining an abortion, but would not do so as a matter of practical politics. Rather, I would hold liable the doctor and attendings. I could get that law passed.

ZORN REPLY -- MCN, live by the condescending remark, die by the condescending remark.
And no, you could NOT get that law passed. Not in 21st century America. In part because it makes no logical sense-- you won't punish the person who seeks out and arranges for and otherwise sets up for and even pays for this "murder" because you know that's politically unpalatable, even though you, like Greg, only seem to be hoping for the day when it IS politically palatable. So we give you this inch and you'd take another inch as soon as it was politically practical.
In other words, you're not negotiating or debating, you're just pushing and will continue to push until you get your way 100 percent. Then you grump and grouse that the pro-choice people are "extreme."
In fact, they just have your number.

Thank you, I appreciate the info. I'm also glad to see that you, as a staunch Catholic, see a problem with some of these contradictions (at least in practice) and how they could potentially hurt the Church... it certainly shows a higher level of thinking than just the standard dogmatic positions taken by some (unfortunately that can apply to both sides of the argument).

I would, however, love to know your opinion of the free-will question... as both a Catholic and a thinking man. Is free-will a requisite to being human? And if so, does an embryo/ zygote/ fetus have free-will?

Honestly, I'm not trying to be slippery. I don't have a fully-developed view on the punishment issue. I'm more or less with Jerry B who wrote " I would probably treat the unwed teenage girl with extreme leniency and the for profit abortion doctor with extreme harshness." I'm not sure if I agree with the "extreme" part but it's close enough.

You wrote "You make a distinction here between "human life" on the one hand and "a fully-formed human being" on the other. The homicide law, of course, makes no such distinction." Good point. That's just one of the things that makes this difficult.

You asked "Would you punish abortion, or at least some early abortions, as a lesser form of homicide based on this distinction?" Hmmm, I'm not sure I care about when the abortion occurred but I'm pretty sure that we'd have to agree to some distinction as a practical matter.

You ask "What do you think is an appropriate sentence for a woman who has committed an abortion-homicide? Ten years? Two? Twenty? Would that change depending on when in the term the person had the abortion?" I think that would depend on many factors but focusing particularly on mens rea. Again, when the abortion occurred in the term doesn't matter too much to me. As we know, homicide sentences are all over the board because the law makes all kinds of distinctions. What we would need to do is impose a sentence strict enough to act as a serious deterrent but lenient enough to recognize the mental state of the person who committed the crime.

You again ask [Is free-will a requisite to being human? And if so, does an embryo/ zygote/ fetus have free-will?]

Answers: No! No!

Perhaps I was too cryptic in my first response when I said "I will certainly concede that the embryo, the fetus, the young child, and the cognitively disabled do not have such a “free will [that] necessarily entails the ability to do good as well as to do evil.”"

As several other posters pointed out "free will" can not be the standard -- otherwise babies and those with severe cognitive disabilities are also disposable.

Note many cultures in ancient times permitted the death of malformed babies through exposure --i.e. leaving on the mountainside.

BruceL: I frankly have given that idea no thought at all. I haven't read this thread carefully and don't really know where many of the arguments are going or where they have been (largely becausee I disagree with the way the question is framed). I will go to a couple of people more knowledgeable than I on this matter.

MCN: I know nothing about canon law & have no desire to know anything about it, I'm not Catholic.
But by using that as an argument, you're saying that a religious law should be the law of the country.
It doesn't work that way.

As for your latest non-sensical post: You can't have different punishments for the "same crime"!
If abortion is a crime, then the punishment for soliciting one must be equal to that of those who perform one.
As for hurting them in the pocketbook, ask the doctors from "Jane" if they were hurt!

And I believe you are cognitively disabled, but I haven't called for your euthanization, yet!

Why are women allowed tests to screen for genetic abnormalities? Don't many consider ending pregnancies when positive results for conditions like Down Syndrome are found? Is it fair to force a woman with an abnormal pregnancy to proceed to term?

Please permit me as the “old guy” attorney to step back and look at the meta-issue.

Steinberg is none-to-bright. However, I am extremely perplexed that you chose to run with this line of argument.

As I said above -- the logical/[illogical] essence of your argument is

“”Human life does NOT begin at conception and ‘pro-choice’ is the correct position ---BECAUSE the pro-life people do not want to punish the unwed teenage mother-to-be as harshly as they would a Mafia hit man.”””

The casual reader will assume that this is the best “pro-choice” argument out there -- which is why it is being made by this blog’s premier left-of-center commenter.

If this was a jury trial – you basically asked the ‘one too many’ cross-exam question – thus permitting the party-witness to give his closing argument in response thereto.

Your question: “But my real question is do you think an embryo has free-will? If so, I would love an explanantion as to why and how.”

- First, let’s focus on the material being of a fertilized egg. “Scientifically speaking, something very radical occurs between the processes of gametogenesis and fertilization. This process leads directly to "’human life’, to a new, genetically unique, newly existing, individual, whole living human being (a single-cell embryonic human zygote). That is, upon fertilization, parts of human beings have actually been transformed into something very different from what they were before; they have been changed into a single, whole humanbeing with unique characteristics. This new single-cell human being immediately produces specifically human proteins and enzymes (not carrot or frog enzymes and proteins or anything else), and genetically directs his/her own growth and development. (In fact, this genetic growth and development has been proven not to be directed by the mother.)12 .” - So from a scientific standpoint, can we agree that a fertilized egg is unique and individualized and that it only uses the mother for a stable environment from which to enjoy life (or a test tube could be used as well you know)?

- Now, the second question to be determined is more of a philosophical one. Do human beings have free will (ie. choice and not by some deterministic force). And a sub-question to that thought would be; do human beings have souls from which to ground their free will in (again as opposed to being cells with determined physical material processes only). I would argue that a zygote has a soul as soon as it has the same characteristics that other human beings have when defined as a “human being” (see paragraph above). Furthermore, I would argue that souls are transcendent (that they are created during fertilization by G-d, and they are eternal thereafter). So finally, a transcendent eternal soul DOES have free will from the moment it exists. Philosophically, do you have a reason to believe it would not? Why would you hold that a fetus wouldn’t have a soul or free will until right before after it was born?

You said: “No, I asked ‘What free will can this entity have if its only means of survival is dependence on the mother?’" Is your statement now hinging on “its only means of survival?” I’ll rephrase your claim in another way: If a being is solely dependent on “X” then it cannot have free will (because that is what your premise assumes). I think you need to realize that all life is dependent on something else. What form of life do you know that is 100% independent of it’s environment? One of your only means of survival is by breathing air. Am I to assume you don’t have a free will because your only means of survival is dependent on air? Of course not. My question to you is, why are saying an embryo doesn’t have free will simply because it is dependent on it’s environment?

Finally, if the argument is, "Because humans are created in the image and likeness of G-d, we are endowed with a ‘free will.” – Then I would definitely say an embryo has free will given it already is a human being (all the characteristics of a genetically unique, newly existing, individual, whole living human being (a single-cell embryonic human zygote)

Garry: I misunderstood you. I have no interest in imposing Canon Law as the law of the land. Moreover, the arguments I make regarding abortion have nothing to do with RC teachings. I believe as a matter of science that a fertilized egg/embryo has all of the potentialities of humanity and, left unhindered, will become a living baby.

@EZ: BS. I'm pushing for what I can get passed. You have absolutely no idea how a legislature would act, other than relying on your particular prejudices.

As far as my not negotiating or debating, how many times do I have to say this: the pro-abortion left will never make any concessions to restricting unlimited abortion on demand. You yourself have admitted as much. Otherwise they fall down the slippery slope to greater and greater regulation. So who's arguing in good faith?

So I've got your number, not the other way around.

I have said until I am blue in the face: I am willing to enact legislation that permits abortions under certain circumstances. I would like those to be as restrictive as possible, naturally, but I am willing to allow some sort of restricted abortion regime.

NARAL is not. Again, those people have NO interest in negotiating. Go after them, not me.

ZORN REPLY -- Well, I don't negotiate for them any more than you negotiate for Joe Scheidler or Jill Stanek, to whom the idea of "certain circumstances" is anathema. I expect since you've not spelled them out that your "certain circumstances" would be modest -- rape and incest, life of the mother. But as soon as you spell them out I'll shoot you right down your own slippery slope.
If I were allowed to do the negotiating I've already spelled out a 24-week or so compromise line. Before that, nunnya bidness. After that, a powerful case must be made.
This would allow women/girls who unwillingly become pregnant to terminate their pregnancies betimes if they so choose but assure rights for fetuses/babies that are able to live outside the womb.

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